In a telecommunications system, voice and data are transmitted and received via cable pairs between telecommunications devices and a central office (CO) or other location containing the switches and other office equipment that enable the communications. The office equipment that performs the required telecommunications functions to enable communications is connected to the cable pairs via a cable block. The cable block is a device with multiple connectors for accepting multiple cable pairs and for attaching jumpers that connect the cable block and corresponding cable pairs to the office equipment. The cable block additionally provides over-voltage protection to the office equipment through the use of various protection coils installed within the cable block. Typically, the cable block is soldered or otherwise permanently connected to the cable pairs on a rear side, and then connected to the office equipment via jumpers that are connected to a front side of the cable block via wrap-on connections. In this manner, the jumpers may be removed, added, or otherwise manipulated without requiring soldering or other permanent connections to be made or broken.
Typically, the signal quality associated with a telecommunications cable degrades as the cable extends in length. In situations where a customer receives dual service in which telephones at two different locations share a telephone number and service, the corresponding two sets of cable pairs are bridged together at the CO. However, the signal quality of each cable pair corresponds to the combined length of both of the bridged cable pairs unless the active cable pair that is in use is isolated from the inactive cable pair. A bridge lifting device isolates the active cable pair from any other bridged cable pairs. For example, if a business telephone is bridged to a home telephone so that the business telephone rings simultaneously at the business and the home, then when the telephone at the business is answered, the bridged cable pair extending from the CO to the home is isolated using a bridge lifting device to maintain the quality of the business call.
There are two common types of bridge lifting devices, a bridge lifter and a mini-bridge lifter. The type of bridge lifting device used depends on the type of cable block being used. For the purposes of this disclosure, the types of cable blocks will be grouped into two types, legacy cable blocks and current cable blocks. The legacy cable blocks require separate bridge lifters placed in-line between the office equipment and the cable block. The separate bridge lifters include all of the necessary circuitry and/or components for isolating an inactive bridged cable pair from an active bridged cable pair. However, separate bridge lifters require an excessive amount of installation space and require soldering when adding, removing, or otherwise modifying connections to jumpers that electrically link the bridge lifter to the office equipment and to the cable block.
In contrast, the current cable blocks include a number of receptacles for receiving the mini-bridge lifters, which include the necessary circuitry and/or components for isolating inactive cable pairs, but are configured as plugs that may be installed within the cable block in a position corresponding to the cable pair to which it is attached. However, using the current cable blocks and mini-bridge lifters, equipment may not be added between the mini-bridge lifters and the corresponding bridged cable pairs. The mini-bridge lifters are installed within the cable block, between the cable block connections to the cable pairs and the cable block connections to the jumpers that electrically link the cable block to the office equipment, without means for adding jumpers from the mini-bridge lifter to additional equipment that requires placement between the mini-bridge lifter and the cable pairs, such as Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) control equipment, and back to the applicable cable pairs.